Sorry to keep anyone waiting, this post has been long in the making. (That sounds kind of fun and lyrical, doesn’t it? Well that ends here). This post started out titled “I love traveling, and it wants to see other people”. As I began writing it, it morphed into two things- a letter to Las Vegas, and a letter to the tropics. To narrow things down, I decided to focus specifically on this trip, instead of dredging up every negative vacation experience I’ve had into one long rant. (To clarify, in crafting this I incidentally DID dredge up every negative vacation experience I’ve ever had, which was truly, a joy).

Dear Big Island, 
Your waters emit more radiant shades of blue and green than I have ever known before. I adore your cool breezes, your vast lands, your awesome volcanoes, and your stunningly colorful birds. I wish I could lay out and bask in your glorious rays without discretion, but it seems that you are seeing other people on the side. While I gush over all the things I’d like to do with you, you tell me “we need to slow down”. I am made to put on an embarrassingly thick SPF 70 sunscreen, and spread it around in places most people would consider taboo. I suffer these indignities for you, because I just want to spend time with you. But I find out you aren’t as committed to this relationship as I am when I start to break out in rashes under my armpits and stomach. You’ve taken our love and turned it into something painful and itchy, but I’m still committed, so I stay in the room where the air conditioning helps numb the signs of your affair. I secretly watch you showing others a good time from the window of our room, wishing it was me instead of them. I am Antony, and you Cleopatra. 
It is hard to be positive and “make the best of it” when you are down about your vacation. Little things that would and should not bother you quickly become hurdles to your enjoyment. And when the only person for you to act out on is the last person you want to act out on, it just adds to the already frustrating and disappointing feels you’re feeling on your should be “vacation” in the first place. 
In short, it lands you in an undesirable mental space. Last night Tim bought some cards and in an attempt to spend time with me since I had been stuck in the room for most of the day, looked up the rules for Golf and sat down to play with me at the table. I would like to take a second to just point out how awesome this is, that we’re on a very special vacation together in which my body has decided to impede my enjoyment, and he just wants to sit inside and play cards with me. But I’m already negatively predisposed to going into something new, especially if the other person is already familiar with the subject. Heap onto that all the other negative thoughts I’d been thinking to myself, like “vacation sabotuer”, “fatty mcFatterson (I know)”, and “fun sucker”, and you have an instant train wreck after losing the first five hands. I sort of jokingly threw my cards down at an angle towards my loving partner in a mock temper tantrum which did not look or feel “mock” at all and as you can image that pretty much ended the night. 
 The morning didn’t bring much hope for quick resolution and I’ve been trying to explain, apologize, and reason through my behavior all morning. Only now, being back outside by the pool (a risk I had to take as I just couldn’t stand being in such a beautiful place locked up inside anymore), am I starting to be able to separate myself from the situation. I don’t know why I get heat rash, or how to resolve it. I’ve been to my doctor and dermatologist, but still have no real tools to deal with it, even after spending an entire day googling “photosensitivity”, “prickly heat”, and “heat rash”. (Worse than the mixed results I got from those searches are the hundreds of pictures of other people’s rashes.) This is pretty frustrating, and doesn’t leave me with a lot of the resources I typically have for dealing with my normal set of neurosis. So I’m going to chalk it up to having a bad day. I have bad days when I’m at my best, so certainly I can have bad days when I’m at my worst. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I was playing cards and pulled a Linda. It was a disembodied experience and I could see myself about to have a meltdown but couldn’t do anything to prevent it. If this is the way it happens to you then I totally get it. If not, then oh well no more PacMan). 
TLDR; I turned into a sunrash monster, am on the path to recovery. 
As always, 
Chris

P.S. In case the title doesn’t make sense I got this Sun rash on Sunday. GET IT NOW?